


Full Circle

by Makioka



Category: Lantern Bearers - Rosemary Sutcliff, Sword at Sunset - Rosemary Sutcliff
Genre: Character Study, F/M, Family, Gen, Introspection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-08
Updated: 2012-08-08
Packaged: 2017-11-11 17:10:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,047
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/480895
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Makioka/pseuds/Makioka
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Holding his son in his arms means Flavian understands his father more.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Full Circle

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Seascribe](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Seascribe/gifts).



> The second story written. Hope this fills in a small gap in the family dynamics for you. I've listed both fandoms since Flavian features in each.

When the Minnow is born, Flavian looks down on him with a sense of wonder that he tries hard to conceal as the other men do when babies are born. This is all his and Teleri’s, this they have created between them and he finds it hard to believe. With one gentle finger he folds back the blanket that the women have woven, and gazes at the tiny old-man face that lies within, until Teleri beckons him back, takes the baby from his arms and croons to it. It seems like a shadow is cast over the day, and he shivers instinctively, all at once fiercely regretting that soon he must go, and that he may not see them for too long a time. 

He had never thought that he could be tempted away from the warrior’s life, but gazing at his wife’s smooth dark head bent over the bald baby he is seized with a sudden piercing burn of regret, a strange aching sadness that it will be some other who teaches his child all the small things a father should teach his son, likely it will be some other who will put him on the back of a pony for the first time and fix his small fingers round the clumsy wooden figures he will play with. 

His own childhood seems so far away, something left behind him, a forgotten country he seldom chooses to remember. His mother had bent over him in the same way he supposes, his father had not been there for his birth, he knows that much. Had not wanted any child, even a first son, this too he has always known. When his father had returned, he had usually loomed a stern forbidding figure, sending him scurrying back in fear he is shamed to recall even now. Aquila had tried to be kind, he knows that now, his first spear with a great war collar of burnished osprey feathers had come from his father, but when he had been too young to use it, and he full remembers the harsh words when he was caught sticking it in the dirt, using it as a spade to break the earth. 

They’d been too different he had thought once, and once he’d thought they’d been too alike. But they had just been father and son in a time of war. And between them always was the rasp of a long-ago filed off thrall ring, the silence of his ancestry. Where other boys boasted of their father’s father’s deeds, Flavian was silent for those were things that Aquila had never spoken of, as though his taking had drawn an impenetrable veil over his past, the good as well as the evil. 

It had been his mother who had quietly tended to him, and sang him stories of those who had once been her people, the long slow soft cradle songs of childhood, of deer killed and battles won, and all the treasures that had once been theirs. It had been his mother’s people he had shaken like a spear in the faces of those that would have sneered. Brandished the knowledge that his mother of a proud line would not have married a man she did not think worthy of the loving, taken comfort in that for his mother of all who he knew was most worthy of love.

That she and his father had shared that he had no doubt though there were no more children. Aquila’s face softened only when she combed through her chestnut brown veil of hair by the fire, love more precious for not being displayed. It softened many small hurts to know that his father had looked at him with the same fierce devouring love that he gave to so few, to his wife, to his child, to Artos of course and from the telling Ambrosius, the love that would throw him between them and any danger, sacrifice any comfort in their protection, and yet could not voice itself in words. 

Now he would not swap that love for anything, for it is his father’s love and powerful, and yet it is not the love he wishes his son to grow up knowing. It is the love he wishes to be there of course, but a gentler love as well. He will not wish this minnow to shrink from his disapproval as though the dark shadow of the pike cuts its way through the water.

Teleri seems to feel his thoughts, she looks up and stretches a hand out to him, and he gladly takes it, feeling her smooth hot skin against his. He is his father’s son in all that matters, he knows that and honours his father for it, and he is his mother’s son as well, and has her love to give also. 

The new minnow waves its tiny fist at him as though admonishing him for his absence of mind, and he gives a sudden grin. “He has his father’s good looks,” he teases Teleri gently.

“Certainly he has his grandfather’s nose,” she replies with a smile, and there is no need to ask which side of the family for the lines even at this tiny age are classic and true for a baby’s nose at least. “Let us hope he is his father's son."

"And his mother's," Flavian quietly adds feeling once again the rush of love for his wife that had impelled them together so strongly. "He will not go far wrong like that." And suddenly he is heartened. He will have to leave in the service of Artos, this he knows and does not regret for it is an oath that runs bone deep, but Teleri will remain and love his child for him, as his mother had loved him in his childhood and this is enough. He has chosen wisely in his wife and he is glad for it. 

"I'll bring him home gifts," he says brushing his hand over the soft cheek, and already thinking of when he will see them again, the toys he will bring, the strong spear that he will gift in his turn when his son is older.

"Bring yourself home safely," is the low reply and then there is loving silence between them.


End file.
